October 17, 2010

I'm sure that, being a political comedian, Maher is perfectly happy that he was capable of generating, alternately, anger and mirth. And good for him for making himself relevant again. I actually love comedy riffs that go to weird stream-of-consciousness places and connect things outrageously, especially when the comedian is hitting the hot buttons of people who don't have an easygoing and big sense of humor. Maher does all that. Of course, he falls way short of the ultimate comedy hero — Lenny Bruce* — because he's not challenging people in his own audience. In fact, he's stroking those people and encouraging a desire they already have: to laugh at someone they want to marginalize.

And by "someone" there, I mean Sarah Palin, not Brett Favre. No one needs much help laughing at Favre at this point. Just tell us what he did and stop and wait for the laughs. Maher's main comedy idea was to connect Favre's sext to Sarah Palin:

To me this story really isn't about sports or sex or how necessary caller ID is. It's about how pathetic and clueless white American males have become because the kind of guy who thinks there are women out there who just cold want to see your cock is the same kind of guy who thinks Sarah Palin is swell and tax cuts pay for themselves....

And if Brett Favre's penis could talk, what would it say? Well, other than no photos please, I think it would say, I'm not a witch. I'm you. Because for hundreds of years, white penises were America. White penises found America. They made the rules and they called the shots, in the workplace, in the home and at the ballot box. But now the unthinkable is happening. White penises are becoming the minority. 2010 was the first year in which more minority babies were born than white babies. This is what conservatives are really upset about.

And this is what lefties are really upset about: American history is the story of greedy white pricks who need to be cut down.

That the president is black, and the Secretary of State is a woman, and every shortstop is Latino, and every daytime talk show host is a lesbian. And suddenly this country is way off track and needs some serious restoring.

He's working the old meme about the Tea Party that distracted liberals in 2009. But it's 2010, the election is breathing down your neck, and tarring the Tea Party as angry racists did not work.

If penises could cry, and I believe they can...

That made me laugh, even though he'd lost me with the trite evil white man stuff.

... then white penises are crying all over America. And that's where this crew comes in. The lovely MILFs of the new rank. And their little secret is that their popularity comes exclusively from white men. Look at the polling. Minorities hate them. Women hate them. Only white men like them.

The only truth I'm hearing ring in that — and I haven't looked at the polling — is that liberals (quite rightly) loathe the strong, attractive women who have emerged on the right. And minorities and women have for many years tended to go for the Democrats. So those minorities and women, polled, will say they oppose Palin. But some minorities and plenty of women lean toward conservatism. If they feel repelled by conservative women like Sarah Palin, wouldn't that be evidence of sexism? By contrast, the white males who love Palin should for being open to women stepping up to political power. If these men only saw the women as sexual beings, they would tear down the political aspirations. They would scoff at and mock them... the way Bill Maher does. I think Maher was aware of that flaw in his comic rant. Here's how he tries to flip it the way he wants to go:

I'm no psychiatrist but I do own a couch.

This is a concession that he thinks women exist for sexual purposes.

And my theory is that these women represent something those men miss dearly: the traditional idiot housewife.

Maybe you have that theory because that's what you want in a woman. The housewife is a woman who stays home, and conceptualizing women as idiots is something men do when they want to block their aspirations outside of the home. This is what Maher is trying to do to Palin and the other conservative women. How can he pin that mindset on the men who support the women's ascension to power? No one wants an idiot to represent them in government.

Yes, we vote for idiots all the time, but it's because we project our hopes onto them and imagine them to be, in fact, brilliant:

________

*Here's Dustin Hoffman acting out the most striking example of Bruce challenging his own audience. Very offensive language.

"Yes, we vote for idiots all the time, but it's because we project our hopes onto them and imagine them to be, in fact, brilliant:"

I suspect that was your "reasoning" with Obama, but sometimes you have to vote for the less capable, or educated, because there are worse qualities than that to to be avoided. There are a lot of politicians that I wish were simply stupid, but in fact are worse.

What are some examples of strong, smart women that liberals love, and what is the evidence that they are so very strong and smart?

Michelle Obama?Hillary Clinton? Now, I like Hillary. But she was promoted as strong and smart from the beginning- she didn't have to prove that to us. She was indeed well educated, but she also said a lot of stupid, untrue things throughout her public life. And she got our attention when her husband cheated on her (even early on, when they both denied his affair with Gennifer Flowers).

... liberals (quite rightly) loathe the strong, attractive women who have emerged on the right.

You mean "quite leftly," don't you?

As far as I'm concerned liberals only respect women and blacks and other minorities who know their place, namely, being happy that a handful (of properly vetted) members of whatever group liberals have pigeon-holed them into have been elevated into positions of authority.

The brouhaha over Sarah Palin's Downs syndrome son tells me that as far as liberals are concerned women do not have a right to choose -- they must choose abortion or MoDo and Sully will go birdsh*t on them.

My guess is that there are more women who respect what Sarah Palin has accomplished, starting out with hardly anything going for her but her determination, than who respect respect what Lisa Murkowski has accomplished, having had her senatorial seat handed to her by her father.

Maher is so ugly that hearing him talk about Sex is always skeevy. But your analysis is correct.

Maher, a liberal democrat who used to pose as a 'politically incorrect' libertarian, is just making standard Democrat talking points. Don't like Obama - you're a racist. Don't like Pelosi - you hate women. Like Palin - and its because you...oh well you want women to be idiot housewives...yeah thats it..you'll vote for a women but only because you want them to stay home and bake cookies..except for Palin and all those other ones running for office.

BTW, Maher is so unfunny, stupid, and ugly he could be the next Senator from Minnesota.

The only truth I'm hearing ring in that — and I haven't looked at the polling — is that liberals (quite rightly) loathe the strong, attractive women who have emerged on the right.

None of them is going to win anything. Not even the unattractive ones.

Palin hates on liberals, they hate right back. O'Donnell is different, she doesn't have Palin's mean streak, she actually has a sense of humor and is funny in her own way. Sarah Palin is just a conniving manipulating bitch, period.

According to what I've heard on the Stern show, Maher is well-known among comedians as a guy who only dates black or Asian women.

Artie Lange told a really funny story about Maher and a group of other celubtards being stranded by a limo company in Miami on Super Bowl weekend. Said celebrities had to walk through a sketchy (non-white) neighborhood. Everyone in the group noticed the way the Maher kept his mouth shut and close to his black date.

As we get closer to 11/2, all of Maher's insecurities are surfacing. He seems to be exhibiting the same inferiority complex as those old Southern white supremacists obsessed with black men's sexual prowess (Ritmo appears to have the same problem) while he tries to tell everybody how unlike them he is.

Then, too, he can't deal with assertive women - feminists were only as assertive as the white Lefty power structure wanted them to be; they had to tow the party line when some Demo like Willie experienced zipper malfunctions.

Maher is one of those lefty blogger boys and comedians I wrote about in my comment yesterday, isn't he? He and Dowd and the rest of their clan are shaking in their boots (and elsewhere) that the first woman president could actually be a Republican shattering all stereotype of a obedient (idiot) housewife as a Republican woman. Then the liberal women start whining (if they are not already) about who started the feminist movement, the woman friendly legislation, fighting for their rights, blah, blah... They cry life is so unfair.

I say you deserve it, all of it. I am an ardent Hillary supporter and I hate what the lefties did to her. They missed the boat and are crying foul at these other women. Pathetic does not begin to describe it.

Because for hundreds of years, white penises were America. White penises found America. They made the rules and they called the shots, in the workplace, in the home and at the ballot box. But now the unthinkable is happening. White penises are becoming the minority. 2010 was the first year in which more minority babies were born than white babies. This is what conservatives are really upset about.

Maher thinks his comedic intelligence makes him smart...

Here's what he's missing: White penises decided that Liberty and Equality should be extended to everyone

It was an evolving process - first the merchant males, then the common males, then the slaves, then women, then gays. But we did it.

I can't say that I have any faith, based on history and direct experience, that the non-whites would have done the same if they had been the ones calling the shots.

You know, if people like Maher thought about it for 2 seconds, their own dislike of conservative women would help them understand conservatives' dislike of Barack Obama. It isn't about gender or race, but ideology. Surely he is self-aware enough to see that.

Do liberals ever discuss politics without bringing up skin color? I hear conservatives do it all the time, even when they are discussing people who happen to be of color, but liberals just can't really talk without making it part of the argument.

It's interesting how people like Bill Maher mocks white men for feeling increasingly marginalized and threatened, while at the same time glowing over the fact that they ARE marginalized and threatened. And, as a white man himself, he feels strangely above the fray, as if none of this will ever affect him negatively.

Bill Maher elicits unpleasant feelings of hatred in me. There is something deep down dishonest and ugly abut him. I don't feel that way about most people over mere political differences.

Palin hates on liberals. Really?? Help me here Garage. Please give me one example Garage. Just one, not ten, just one. She's been covered by every lefty news outlet since the last presidential campaign. Surely you can come up with just one.

Lenny Bruce has a lot of damage to answer for, but nobody ever brings up the damage done in the name of being a hero. Who cleans up after the superhero saves the day? It better damned be worth it. It has not been.

Those babies aren't coming out of penises, Bill. They are coming out of vaginas.

Does this explain the left's obsession with Sarah Palin's breeding ability?

I don't take this minority-majority ranting about the Tea Party seriously because the progressives who do it are usually in the whitest neighborhoods.

The closest real town to me is probably the most diverse place I've ever seen. (I'm in a not-very-townlike suburb).

White, black, asian, brown all occupy about the same percentage of the population - and this is key - EVERYONE is somewhere in the middle class. It's equally Republican/Democrat.

Contrast this to a liberal college town with its still majority professional whites and large percentage of asians, a few token blacks with the browns doing their dirty work and a then a bunch of section 8 (black/brown) and some homeless (black and white).

And what do my very progressive bobo relatives say whenever they visit? One of whom came from this town btw. Do they rhapsodize about the diversity? No way. It's

And the best of all, "There isn't really any poverty in our town" (said while looking about a solidly middle class town that isn't remotely poor - it's just full of WHITE PPL and MINORITIES WHO SHOP AT ICKY COSTCO WHICH YOU MISTOOK FOR POVERTY because it doesn't fit your aesthetic.)

I don't think we should politicize Brett Favre's penish. Do you think Maher would do a rift on LT's recent arrest for patronizing an underaged hooker and relate that arrest to a larger statement on the nature of black male sexuality?

Maher is overrated. In his elite world, he sees as the natural state of affairs that women judge males by how much money they make or what sort of education they possess. Maher's appeal, like much of HBO, is to elitists who feel a little awkward about their cluelessness and who hope listening to a cynical comedian like Maher who sprinkles the cuss words of the common people like table salt will help them understand non-elitists and common sense. It won't. Maher is a politically correct elitist superficially pretending to be else. All he can do for elitists is to reinforce the same elitist opinions they already hold. He's even too boring for me to want to consider him for more than fifteen minutes notwithstanding I am posting a comment about him.

Maher reminds me why I wanted Condi Rice to make a run for the Presidency. I wanted to see millions of heads explode in Cognitive Dissonance as the evil, sexist racist Republicans started voting for her in droves.

Okay, maybe not droves...I don't think she has the charisma to be president. But at the start of that election cycle, all the big hitters were dull anyway.

This is a duplicate comment, but it's worth reposting a Ritmo comment from one earlier last week, displaying what he's up to at Althouse, and why he comments here:

"Ritmo Brasileiro said...It's good to know that the stupidest threads are just ripe for the threadjacking. I'll be sure to leave a trail of turds on every one of the brain droppings here that suit my fancy. Getting you shit-eaters to complain about the taste after opening your mouths wide and saying "Ahhhh..." to every bad idea under the sun is very satisfying, I must admit.10/16/10 10:28 AM"

Now who is supposed to be the kind of guy "who thinks there are women out there who just cold want to see (his) cock"?

How astonishing that Maher should make this comment. 'Cause I guar-un-god-dam-tee that he's the kind of guy who thinks there are men out there who just cold want to see his cock...and vice versa.

This is a bizarre line of attack from Maher, since, not to be crude, but, a fairly widely known "flirting" technique of gay men is the sharing of "guess who" shots of genitalia. This happens much more so than with heterosexual men and women to the opposite sex.

So does anyone really believe Maher doesn't have some junkage tweets in his digital past? "Kind of guy", my ass.

Why is Maher so thrilled about demographic changes given what is occuring in California?

The problem is summarized here by Jason Richwine:

"The consequences of a large ethno-cultural group’s lagging behind the majority in education and income are significant. In strictly economic terms, perpetually poor immigrants and their descendants will be a major strain on social spending and infrastructure. Health care, public education, welfare payments, the criminal justice system, and programs for affordable housing will all require more tax dollars. When pro-immigration conservatives declare that these government programs should be scaled back or eliminated entirely, I am sympathetic. But a large public sector is a reality that cannot be wished away — we will not be abolishing Medicaid or public schools anytime soon. Immigration policy needs to take that reality into account.

Even if economics were not a concern, the lack of Hispanic assimilation is likely to create ethnic tensions that threaten our cultural core. Human beings are a tribal species, and this makes ethnicity a natural fault line in any society. Intra-European ethnic divisions have been largely overcome through economic assimilation — Irish and Italian immigrants may have looked a bit different from natives, but by the third generation their socioeconomic profiles were similar. Hispanic Americans do not have that benefit."